Toward a Theoretical Understanding of Immigration and Education Policy

• In Event: 21.032 - How Immigration and Education Policy Collide in a "Post-Truth" Era

Abstract

Objectives
The links between immigration policy and education are more evident than ever; however, as a field, our research, theories, and school practices are not keeping pace with the realities of immigration policy in the lives of immigrant students and families or of educators in schools. This paper analyzes the relationship between immigration policy and education policy and provides a theoretical framework for understanding the intersection of immigration and education policy and practice.

Methods and Frameworks
To build this framework, we reviewed and synthesized relevant research in the fields of immigration and education. We pay particular attention to scholarship examining the lives and educational experiences of undocumented students and undocumented or mixed-status families (e.g. Abrego, 2006; Gonzales, 2016; Patel, 2013; Yoshikawa, 2011) and research on classroom, school and district policy and practice for immigrant students (e.g. Dabach, 2015; Lee, 2005; Menken, 2008; Valenzuela, 1999). Given rapidly shifting immigration policy terrain and the slow-moving world of academic publishing, we also draw on recent news reporting to capture phenomena that is currently unfolding.

Theoretically, this framework draws on insights from sociocultural and critical approaches to policy studies (e.g. Ball, Braun, & McGuire, 2012; Levinson & Sutton, 2001; Spillane, Reiser, & Gomez, 2006). In contrast with more traditional policy studies and frameworks, these approaches emphasize policy as a contested, interpretive, and power-laden process constituted by numerous actors who may hold differing “truths” (Yanow, 2001). This framework centers the perspectives of actors “on the ground” and the ways in which policy becomes enacted in schools and classrooms, while contextualizing it within broader social, political and economic contexts, making it a useful complement to and theoretical extension for the research on undocumented students and undocumented or mixed-status families and educational policy and practice for immigrant students.

Results
We identify and develop the following conceptual insights. First, immigration policy and education policy are interwoven in the everyday lives of immigrant students and families in schools, home, and community. Second, the roles and relationships of immigrant students, families and educators in interpreting, appropriating, contesting, and enacting policy are central to the processes that bring together immigration and education policies. Third, these processes are situated within the transnational, multi-scalar, and interconnected policy spaces, schools, homes, and communities which shape policy, schooling, and immigrant lives. Fourth, multiple important consequences of the intersections of immigration and education policy develop over time and across the life span. These include: immigrant students’ social legitimation, fear and trauma, disengagement from school and civic engagement. Finally, we find that power relations are elemental to each of the above insights.

Significance
With rapidly shifting immigration policy landscape and millions of children in the U.S. living in undocumented or mixed status families, understanding how immigration policy and education policy interact is more important than ever. We offer a nuanced, empirically-grounded theorization of the intersections of immigration and education policy that can guide educational research and educators’ practice.

Authors

• Erica Owyang Turner, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Rutgers University